Parenting | Baby Behavior

When Your Teen has a Child

Image by kendrak via Flickr

A lot of parents have an unofficial rule that they have raised all the babies they ever will. Nonetheless, when a teen comes home with evidence that a baby is imminent, or with the child itself, things change immediately. Only the cruelest parent would put their teen out like proverbial garbage when they’re in a time of such need. So what do you do if your teen comes home with a child?

In a situation like this, you might be tempted to abort the infant or put it up for adoption depending on how far along things have gotten. When your teen is suddenly thrust into a parenting role, it can be a serious shock to your sensibilities. You can remember when your teen was born, so it can be hard to register that they now have their own child to take care of. Unfortunately, reality tends to roll through like a freight train, and being a teen parent is something your teen is going to have to adjust to immediately.

You have a lot of major decisions to make. First off, are you going to raise your teen’s child as yours and allow your child to remain free of the responsibility? Many parents have traditionally opted for this role, and the child may grow up never even knowing who really gave birth to them. If you choose to allow your teen to be a parent in every sense, when will they move out on their own? Will they continue with going to college? The logistical considerations of having a baby never seem to get any easier over time.

Filed Under: General, Parenting Tagged With: Adolescence, Child, Parent

3 Reasons your Teen Needs a Cell Phone

Many parents find themselves wrestling with whether or not they should buy their teenage child a cell phone. This can be a difficult decision to make when you consider what happens when your child misuses their cell phone privileges, which is a common occurrence, especially among first-time cell phone owners. The truth is, however, there are a number of reasons why your teenager would benefit from having a cell phone, and here are 3 of the most prevalent:

1. To be prepared in the event of an emergency. Whether your teenager has a simple flip phone or a Blackberry smartphone, having a means of calling 911 or phoning home in an emergency is essential. Your child needs to be able to reach you at all times, so make sure that he or she can.

2. So you can reach your child in an emergency. If you cannot pick him or her up from school, if you are injured in a car accident, or if you need to find out what his or her plans are for the day, being able to reach your child whenever you need to is one of the most obvious benefits of ensuring that your child always has a cell phone on his or her person.

3. It’s an outstanding learning experience. Giving your teenager a cell phone and specific boundaries or restrictions on its use is a great learning and teaching experience. You can help your teenager learn to handle a cell phone bill, minute allowances and other aspects of having something that they are responsible for, and so in addition to providing a much needed means of communication, it also allows your child an outstanding learning experience in the process.

Filed Under: Children, Parenting Tagged With: Blackberry, Cell Phones, Mobile phone

Pregnancy Milestones: Tracking Your Pregnancy

The idea of a small life growing inside a woman is more than a special mystery of life. Pregnancy is an important time in a woman’s life. In order to keep up with your growing baby, it’s a good idea to track your pregnancy. You can do this using many of the programs available on the Internet or smartphone market.

Using a digital or paper based pregnancy calendar is important for a pregnant woman. It helps you keep up with the development of your baby. You can also use it to track specific doctor appointments. It will also help you remember specific events required for your pregnancy, such as Lamaze classes. It can also give you a chance to see what your baby looks like at specific weeks. Tracking your pregnancy can give you the opportunity to share your progress with others.

Most online pregnancy calendars offer the ability to share your weekly progress via email, or posting to specific social media sites. It allows others to see your baby’s progression and comment about your well-being. If you do use an online pregnancy calendar, your progress may be displayed in the website’s personal forum.

These places are a great for asking questions, especially if you’re a first time mother. And, you can ask others about their development in their pregnancies. Be aware that you will probably receive plenty of advice from other members. Take this advice in stride. Every woman’s pregnancy is different, and because it is, the best advice to listen to is from your doctor.

Filed Under: Medical, Parenting Tagged With: Calendar, Health, Pregnancy

The Logistics of Teen Pregnancy

Image via Wikipedia

From time to time, a teen is going to have a child of their own. While every parent hopes their children will make more responsible choices and hold off on having kids of their own, this is the kind of thing a parent just has to adapt to from time to time. While the situation doesn’t get better for a long time, many parents could use some advice on what to think of first.

The first thing is, your teen needs to understand their responsibilities as a new parent. They need to accept that the fun and fancy free days of their youth are gone for awhile. While they will eventually be able to return to such days, they’ll be in their 30s by that point and it will seem strange. For the time being, hiring a baby sitter or not going out is going to be one of your teen’s chief challenges. In addition to this, your teen is going to need to earn money somehow. Granted, there are ways to earn money from home, many teens don’t think in those kinds of terms to start with.

Once the fact that their freedom is now limited sets in, a lot of teens will be traumatized. The idea of having a child is great when you can give them back to their parents at the end of the day. But when it’s yours, the entire feeling changes. While your family will inevitably adapt to helping your teen take care of their new child, the problems of raising one person when their own parent isn’t fuly grown are going to be issues for years to come.

Filed Under: Parenting, Tips Tagged With: Adolescence, Child, Parent

When Your Teen Rebels

Teenage rebellion is as ubiquitous as oxygen. When you consider that in the ancient world a teen would go off on their own as soon as they wanted to, it makes sense that there’s an annoying gap between childhood and adulthood that a person has to go through. While you don’t want to be a doormat when your teen throws the older equivalent of a tantrum, you also want to let them know that you’re respecting them a little more each day.

When a teen rebels, you have to consider why they’re rebelling in the first place. If the reason is just because they want to stretch their level of independence, that’s perfectly natural. If they genuinely believe they aren’t getting enough respect, that’s something you can deal with easily enough. You have to show them uniformly that you respect them as junior members of adult society, even if most of your mind still sees them as a toddler with a bigger body. Your teen gets closer to being an adult every day, and a major part of that adulthood rests on a basic level of respect.

While it would be easy to try and break your teen’s spirit through acts of violence designed to keep them in line, this can backfire in a lot of nasty ways. If your teen has a serious emotional problem, this can be all it takes to get them to fight back. If you want to have to physically battle your teen and possibly have them end up in a foster home, have at it. But it’s a whole lot easier to simply show them a measure of respect.

Filed Under: General, Parenting Tagged With: Adolescence, Parent, Youth

When Your Teen Gets a Credit Card

Teenagers are not known for being especially forward thinkers. So when your teen gets a credit card, it can seem like they’re basically trying to spend you into bankruptcy for some sort of twisted enjoyment. However, if your teen asks to get a credit card and wants you to cosign on it, there are some rules you would do well to put into place. These rules can set the stage for a lot more responsibility down the road.

A teen with a credit card should have some sort of bank account with a positive balance first. If they know how to save and it’s a part of their regular life, your teen will understand that the money they spend has to come from somewhere. While saving money doesn’t necessarily come naturally to some people, it does become a habit for people who have had to do without something they really wanted. If your teen’s card gets maxed out and they can’t pay off their balance, they need to be responsible for paying back however much interest they end up owing.

Because of this requirement, your teen should have a job before they can have a credit card. Otherwise, how are they going to pay back what they spend? There is something about having to work for one’s money that makes the process of spending it a little bit slower. Being able to simply spend without any kind of tradeoff is great, but that only applies to politicians and Wall Street executives. Ifyou want to teach your teen some responsibility and grow their credit, a credit card can be great. Make sure they use it responbily.

Filed Under: Parenting, Tips Tagged With: Adolescence, Credit card, Wall Street

Shopping for Your Baby for Halloween

Image via Wikipedia

Halloween is a fun time of year in which parents can display their creative side and pick a unique costume for each of their children. For a baby, it’s important to consider how comfortable he or she will be while wearing it.

Since many parents enjoy snapping photographs of their children on the holiday, a happy baby is more fun to document than one who is uncomfortable and miserable. If heading out for trick-or-treating, a baby will probably prefer not to walk around the whole neighborhood, or be dressed in a costume that doesn’t fit well with the weather. Safety is important too, so choosing fabrics that are soft, will fit comfortably, and don’t have a lot of large pieces protruding, or small items that can be pulled off the baby costumes will ensure a more pleasant evening for all.

When shopping for a costume, some parents tend to select more trendy items, such as characters from popular television shows or current movies. Others prefer a more classic look, such as a zoo animal or a witch. This is where the originality and desires of the parents can shine, to make sure each child has a fun and special costume to wear for the holiday. As children get older, they start to become more opinionated and select their own costumes, so it can be fun for parents to be able to select the costume for their babies.

Celebrating Halloween with a family get-together, trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, or staying in and passing out candy to other children are all fun ways to spend time together and start making memories and traditions that can be shared.

Filed Under: Parenting, Tips Tagged With: Costume, Halloween, Halloween costume